David Bradbury (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer ) Share this | Hansard source

The member opposite said, 'Don't be so ridiculous.' Right across the charitable and not-for-profit sector people are in fear that if there were to be a change in government you characters will return to type and do exactly what Newman has done in Queensland and O'Farrell has done in New South Wales to silence these organisations. The member opposite said that this is just additional red tape and that we have a tried and tested definition of charity; it is in the common law and it has been there for 400 years. You know what? The Commonwealth of Australia has not been around for 400 years. In fact, white settlement in Australia did not begin 400 years ago. The point is that the definition of 'charity' goes all the way back to the statute of Elizabeth. I know that those opposite have a penchant for the mother country. So dear is that to them that they want to retain in place a definition of 'charity' that began with the statute of Elizabeth in 1601.

An opposition member interjecting—

The member opposite said that the wheel was invented a lot earlier than that. He is contributing in his Neanderthal way. I thank the member for his contribution. The point is that this is a definition that has evolved over a period of 400 years. I want to share with the member for Hasluck a personal experience. When I first began as a tax lawyer many years ago undertaking a pro bono project for a charitable client, they came in and said: 'We want to know if we're a charity. Can you please tell us?' You would have thought that that would be a pretty simple thing to do. Listening to the member for Hasluck talk about this well-worn and acceptable notion of charity that has been developed over 400 years, you would think that that would be pretty easy to do. I have to say that working in a corporate law firm and having spent hours and hours to put together a letter of advice that was between 12 to 15 pages long, I simply ask this question: do you really think that that is good enough for the charitable and the not-for-profit sector? Any organisation out there simply wanting to know if they are a charity needs to go and get legal advice that runs to tens of pages.

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